Posts by Swedan Margen
Instagram boss defends app from witness stand in trial over alleged harms to kids
[ad_1] A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threatened to throw grieving mothers out of court Wednesday if they couldn’t stop crying during testimony from Instagram boss Adam Mosseri, who took the stand to defend his company’s app against allegations the product is harmful to children. The social media addiction case is considered a bellwether…
Read MoreThe Director of “Crime 101” on His Favorite Anti-Western Westerns
[ad_1] When the director Bart Layton—whose new film, “Crime 101,” opens on Friday—recently reflected on his favorite novels, he realized that many were what might be termed anti-Westerns. “Most Westerns are great adventures about risk and endeavor and glory,” he said. The books that he loves invert that mythology, focussing on characters in situations that…
Read MoreMeta, TikTok and others agree to teen safety ratings
[ad_1] Meta, TikTok and Snap will be rated on their teen safety efforts amid rising concern about whether the world’s largest social media platforms are doing enough to protect the mental health of young people. The Mental Health Coalition, a collective of organizations focused on destigmatizing mental health issues, said Tuesday that it is launching…
Read MoreSuper Bowl spots spark fight over whether we’re ready for ads from our chatbots
[ad_1] The chatbot wars entered the Super Bowl this year. At Super Bowl LX, a ChatGPT competitor paid millions of dollars for commercials mocking the leading artificial intelligence chatbot’s plans to put advertisements in its chats. One of the ads, titled “Betrayal,” showed a man seeking help to communicate better with his mother. His therapist,…
Read MoreAI Won’t Replace Trust in Marketing
[ad_1] Generative AI is impressive, but it still misses what matters most in marketing: trust. That’s my stance, and it comes from hard-won experience. As a founder and operator, I’ve watched the hype grow louder while the work of earning trust has not changed. Marketing runs on authenticity, not shortcuts. When content feels fake, people…
Read MoreWhat great founders do differently in their first 90 minutes of the day: 7 patterns that compound over time
[ad_1] Most founders don’t lose the day at 3 p.m. They lose it before breakfast. The first 90 minutes of your morning quietly decide whether you spend the day reacting to noise or building real leverage. It’s when anxiety is loudest, willpower is highest, and the temptation to “just check Slack” feels harmless but isn’t.…
Read More“The President’s Cake” Is a Neorealist Treasure from Iraq
[ad_1] In the city, the story splits in half: Lamia gets separated from Bibi (for reasons I wouldn’t dare disclose) and searches for the one person she knows there, a classmate’s father, who supposedly works at an amusement park. At the venue, she espies the classmate, a boy named Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), picking someone’s…
Read More‘Ass power!’ Hundreds gather in L.A. to play a video game about donkeys and the resistance
[ad_1] The donkeys are pissed off. Put upon, out of work and victims of decades-long systemic abuse, it’s time, they have decided, to protest. The donkeys, metaphorically, are us. At least that’s the premise of “asses.masses,” a video game played by and for a live audience. It’s theater for the post-Twitch age, performance art for…
Read MoreThe Movie That Inspired Gregory Bovino to Join Border Patrol
[ad_1] For all the scenes of jeeps raising dust in the desert and migrants wading through the Rio Grande, “The Border” is something of a two-hander. Charlie’s prevailing disgust with his fellow-officers, most of whom all but openly take part in a human-trafficking operation, is sharpened when a young migrant from Mexico, named Maria, has…
Read MoreTrial starts in L.A. lawsuit alleging Instagram and YouTube knew apps harmed kids
[ad_1] A landmark civil trial that will ask jurors to decide whether social media companies can be held liable for pushing a product that they allegedly knew was harmful to children began Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, with attorneys sparring for more than four hours in combative opening arguments. The closely watched test…
Read MoreHow to split equity among co-founders fairly
[ad_1] You probably didn’t start your company thinking the equity conversation would be the hardest one. But here you are, staring at a blank cap table, knowing that whatever you decide now will quietly shape motivation, resentment, and leverage for years. Too many founders either rush this conversation to avoid awkwardness or default to a…
Read MoreWhat is feature creep (and how to avoid it in your MVP)
[ad_1] If you’ve been building your MVP for more than a few weeks, this will feel familiar. You started with one clear problem to solve. Then a customer suggested a small tweak. An investor asked how it would work for a different use case. A teammate said, “While we’re in there, we might as well…
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